


keep your head low

by evangelistofstars



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Backstory, Capitalism, Car Accidents, Character Death, Child Death, Pre-Canon, Soul Selling, in which i explore the workers in hadestown one by one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 14:51:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18875413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evangelistofstars/pseuds/evangelistofstars
Summary: Ever wondered how the workers in Hadestown each made their way down below? Or what their lives had been like up top beforehand? These workers spend their time slaving away. All of them sold themselves to Hades. But now it's time to hear their stories, of what their lives could have been like, and how they got down below.





	keep your head low

Once, years ago, there had been a woman. A wife, a mother, a dreamer. They said her name was Kimberly. As a young woman, she’d fallen in love with a young man, a peasant farmer who sang on the side, and had dreams of being a singer someday, hoping to sell his farm and move to Hollywood or New York or somewhere where he could make it big. She’d fallen in love with a man who put stars in her eyes and made her think anything was possible. Kimberly too had dreams, she wanted to be an actress, a big movie star. She’d dreamed of acting ever since she was a little girl, and as a young woman, she had taken up waiting tables at the bar Hermes owned, trying to save up enough money to move to Hollywood with her lover. Times were hard, they always had been, but she still had faith that her dreams would someday come true. It wasn’t long before the two were married. Them being peasants, their wedding was simple and small, no fancy decorations or elaborate ceremonies, nothing they couldn’t afford. A simple spring wedding in an open field, where Kimberly had flowers in her hair and danced under the stars with her new husband. But because of their love for each other, their small little wedding felt like the most important day in the world, and she swore she’d remember it forever.

 

She moved into her husband’s farm, and the young lovers’ life was wonderful. They were poor, peasant farmers, but they were happy nonetheless, they had everything they needed: Each other. Her husband tended the farm and still sang on the side, sometimes performing at the bar where Kimberly worked, and on those nights, she remembered she’d wait tables and watch him sing, and he’d bring her up on the stage every night and say “This is my beautiful wife,” he’d dance with her and twirl her around as he sang his songs, and it felt to her like a scene out of a movie. She hoped she’d get to be in a movie someday. It was her dream, after all.

 

As the years went by, Kimberly had since given up on her dreams of being an actress. She realized she and her husband were never going to make it to Hollywood, despite how hard they’d worked. She’d since given birth to a child, a beautiful baby daughter, and had left her job at Hermes’ bar, resigning to help look after her husband’s farm and care for her new baby daughter, as she no longer needed to save up money for Hollywood and had grown content with the life she had. She loved her husband, and he loved her. He still sang on the side sometimes, but he sang less and less as the farm and the child were taking up more and more of their time. But sometimes, when he had a break, he’d sing her a song, and she’d sit there and listen to him, remembering the days when they were young and anything was possible. When dreams came true and stars were in their eyes. Those days were gone, but their love had not faded a bit. She couldn’t ever imagine being away from him, and swore they’d be together for all their lives.

But one day, Kimberly’s husband had gone on a trip to acquire some farm equipment that could only be purchased in one store several towns away. Kimberly had seen the storm clouds, she’d warned him it wouldn’t be safe to go out, but he assured her everything would be okay.

 

“I need to get this equipment,” he told her, “Our farm will fail without it.”

 

“You can go after the storm passes, please. It’s dangerous out there,” she said.

 

“I’ll be fine, I’ll take the car,” he reassured her. “I’ll be back in a couple of days.”   
  


“Fine. Just be careful out there,” she said, reluctantly letting him go.

 

“I will,” he smiled, putting on his coat and kissing her goodbye before he left. As Kimberly heard the sound of the car engine revving, she worried for him, fearing that something may happen to him.  _ What if he got caught in the storm and never returned?  _ As he drove away, she tried to keep a positive outlook. It was just like he had told her.  _ Everything was going to be fine. _

 

The next day, Kimberly recieved a telegram. She tensed up, knowing that telegrams were never a good sign, especially not when your husband was on a road trip out in a storm, but she read it anyway. The telegram read:

 

_ “To: Mrs. Kimberly Marable, _

 

_ I regret to inform you that your husband is no longer alive. Mr. Marable was making a long journey out in the storm, when he got caught in an accident and died. I was there at the scene, I tried to get him help and see if we could get him to a hospital, but it was too late, he died before I could flag down a paramedic. Mr. Marable was a good man, and I’m sure he was a wonderful husband. It is a shame that he is gone from us, but unfortunately you will not be expecting him back tonight.” _

 

As Kimberly read the letter, she found herself choking back tears. _ “Everything will be alright,”  _ he had told her. _ “I’ll be back in a couple of days.”  _ But now he was gone and she would never see him again.  _ This is what you get for going out in that storm,  _ she thought.

 

Kimberly was now a widow, and a single mother too, left to look after her farm and her child alone. There was no funeral, as they couldn’t afford one, and she didn’t have the body anyway, so she was forced to just move on and continue her life without him. She kept him alive in her heart,  she thought of him every single day, crying when she remembered the things he’d told her and the beautiful songs he used to sing for her, crying when she remembered how she’d felt on their wedding day. But she knew that her husband wouldn’t want her to be sad. He’d want her to be happy and remember the good things in life. So she tried to keep her head up in his memory, knowing that it was what he would’ve wanted. She tried to be happy, for him. When her daughter asked “Where’s Daddy?” she told her, full of tears, that he was gone.

 

“Gone?” the little girl asked. “What do you mean he’s gone?”   
  
“I mean he’s gone,” she said. “He’s in a better place now.”

 

“A better place? He’s coming back soon, though, right?”

 

“No, I’m afraid he’s not,” she told her daughter.

 

“So….He’s like, gone, gone?” the little girl asked again.

 

“That’s right,” she nodded sadly, “but we’ll always have him with us in our hearts.”

 

“I miss Daddy,” frowned her daughter.

  
“Of course you do, and I miss him too. But he’d want us to look on the positive.” Kimberly sighed, smiling sadly and pulling her daughter into a close, tight hug. They were crying both of them, but after a while, she let go and smiled at her daughter. “Come on,” she smiled. “Let’s make you another corn doll.” 

 

Of course Kimberly still missed her husband, and she thought of him every single day. But she’d managed to move on a little bit, to a place where it still hurt, but not nearly as much, and she could actually live her life. She devoted her life to making sure her daughter was happy and had everything she wanted (providing that she could afford it) and tending the farm to make sure they’d have enough to eat. But times were getting harder, the livestock were dying, and the crops were barely coming up at all. With winter coming soon, Kimberly wondered if she and her daughter would be able to see next spring, as she sowed up what few crops had made it. She knew it wasn’t enough. If her husband was here, he’d tell her that everything was going to be fine, he’d work his little magic on the crops and they’d have nothing to worry about. But he was gone, winter was drawing nearer, and there was barely enough to eat. She held her child close to her chest, and prayed that they’d both make it out alive.

 

Winter came. The winds were bitter and the nights were so cold that Kimberly woke up to fogged windows. The door barely kept the wind out, so their small farmhouse was drafty, meaning even indoors it was cold. Food was growing scarcer, and they’d almost used up their entire supply of crops. They’d have nothing to eat after that. Oh, how she wished her husband was here, to hold her close and tell her it all was fine. She’d felt a sense of safety with her husband, like he was going to protect her and keep her safe. But now that he was gone, she feared for both her own life and her daughter’s.  _ We’d be lucky to survive the winter,  _ she thought.

 

It wasn’t long before the food supply ran out, and the two of them had nothing to eat. She had no money, the crops wouldn’t grow, and she couldn’t go out and beg for it was too cold. She had nothing to feed her daughter or herself, and the winter was only getting colder. As she woke up one morning, she found that her daughter was dead, and she absolutely broke.

Kimberly remembered a time when she’d had everything she wanted in life. A lovely husband, a beautiful young daughter, a successful farm, a steady job, enough to eat. But all of that had slowly faded to nothing. First her husband had died, then the farm had failed, and now her daughter was gone as well. Everything she’d had, everything she wanted and needed in life, everything she’d ever loved was gone, like her dreams of being an actress when she was young. She wondered when her life would leave her too. It wouldn’t be long now, seeing as she was cold and broke and had no one to help her and nothing to eat. She was sure death would come soon, but if she didn’t go on trying to live, she’d be a failure to herself and her husband.

 

So when Hades came to her and offered her a ticket to the Underworld, she’d resisted his offer at first. She couldn’t let down herself or her husband like this, she couldn’t just give up on her life. But when he told her she’d be safe and well down there, she’d have a steady job and plenty to eat and wouldn’t need to worry about the cold, she took the ticket. She didn’t want to do this, but she didn’t have any other choice. Either she sold herself to Hades, or she starved or froze to death up above, and she’d rather take this promise of security than just die. So it was with a heavy heart that Kimberly accepted the ticket, took his hand, and stepped aboard the train.

 

When Kimberly arrived in Hadestown, she was wide eyed and opportunistic, believing in the promise of security and freedom down below. She hadn’t felt this way since she was young. She felt like anything was possible. Maybe she’d see her husband and her daughter again! She signed the papers eagerly, ready to start her new life, which would hopefully be better than her old one. But Kimberly quickly learned that that wasn’t the way things worked down here. Those who had died with no say in the matter were kept separate from those who had willingly signed their lives away, and those who had signed their lives away were forced to do heavy labor, with no pay, slaving away at the wall which Hades insisted be built around the Underworld, slaving away in the factories building more gadgets and flashy things for Hades to give to Persephone. Theere was  no security, there was no freedom, there was no stability in the Underworld, and Kimberly learned the hard way that Hades was not to be trusted. But she couldn’t do anything now, the deal was done, she’d signed the papers, so she was his slave for eternity.

 

Years passed, and Kimberly had grown used to her life in Hadestown. She’d grown used to the workload, her body had grown more muscular from all the heavy labor, a stark contrast to the petite and feminine figure she’d always had living up top. She couldn’t remember her life up above, really. She remembered bits and pieces of it, but she barely remembered her husband or her child who had brought her down. She wondered if she’d been happier up there, and wondered what would have happened if she had stayed. Would she be happy? Or would she have died of starvation? Or would she have lived, but been miserable her whole life? She didn’t know, for Hadestown was all she could remember now. She didn’t know precisely how long she had been here, but she’d been here long enough to see old workers leave and move to the other part of Hadestown, and new workers come to replace them. Out of all the current workers, she had been there the longest, and the factory was all she had known. But somewhere, deep inside her, was a young peasant woman with dreams of being an actress, a young girl with stars in her eyes who danced under the stars with a peasant farmer loverboy who dreamed of being a musician. That girl was long gone now, but she was somewhere inside of her, if only she’d be able to remember. It wasn’t until Orpheus had come that she’d started to remember, and started to have a bit of hope. Orpheus was everything her husband had been, she saw him in the young boy who’d come to Hadestown to rescue his lover. If only her husband could have done that for her, and not died before her instead. It was because of Orpheus that Kimberly began to remember. She remembered what hope was, what freedom was, what music was, and oh, it was a beautiful memory. And that is how the worker, the mother, the wife, the farmer, the waitress, the actress, the dreamer, the lover, known as Kimberly Marable, died. And that is how she found herself again.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all! This is a fic exploring the backstories of the workers in Hadestown, in order of who's been there the longest. I couldn't really think of names for them, so I used the names of the actors in the show. This is based on a post about headcanons of the workers' backstories, made by tumblr users roadtohadestown and orphydicies, and the corresponding aesthetics made by tumblr user promisesyoumadetome. There will be a chapter for each worker.


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